AI – forgiveness for snake-like people

In fact, in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the message of God came to be upon John, the son of Zechariah, in the wilderness. (Luke’s AD 60 research report re Jesus: Chapter 3: 1-7)

“The fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar” identifies this event as taking place around AD 29, given that Tiberius became Roman Emperor is AD 14. Luke’s gives five other methods of dating the event. It took place “in the wilderness” north east of Jerusalem. But then, as now, the wilderness of hurt and pain was global – and included the deeds of Tiberius himself as well as of those conquered and ruled by Rome. What exactly took place? “The message of God came to be upon John, the son of Zechariah.” God’s message came to be upon John the Baptist. This John was the one whose birth had been foretold to his aged father, a priest in the Jerusalem Temple. Zechariah was told that his son John would “return many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God”. Now - about 29 years later, John is doing what he was appointed to do. And he came into all the region around the Jordan, announcing a mind-change immersion into forgiveness of sins.
John the Baptist announced this “message of God”: “a mind-change immersion into forgiveness of sins.” In the global wilderness which men and women had created and were creating for themselves and others, he announced something totally new. Something which could bring about “forgiveness of sins”. That something was “a mind-change immersion”.	.
When a sponge is immersed in water it completely drinks in the water. This “mind-change immersion” – announced by John – was all about a total change in each human being. And, once immersed in that mind-change, the forgiveness of all a person’s sins was part and parcel of the whole deal, this “message of God”. That was in AD 29. Crowds of people were interested. They saw and felt the evil and badness of their own contributions to the “wilderness” they and others were living in. They longed for a “mind-change immersion”. Just as it was written in the book of the words of Isaiah the prophet, “A voice crying out in a wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight! Every valley will be filled, and every mountain and hill will be lowered, and the crooked will be straight, and the rocky will be level, and all flesh will see the salvation of God.’” “Isaiah?” Who was he? He was a prophet of the LORD God who lived in Jerusalem at least between 730 BC and 690 BC. Through the holy spirit, he spoke and wrote of the coming Messiah, Jesus. One of Isaiah’s main messages to the people of his day – and beyond – was reported by Luke above. It starts with two commands. I expect John the Baptist repeated these many times. ‘Prepare the way of the Lord! Make his paths straight!’ The Messiah, the Lord is here. Prepare! Do! And then, the coming of Messiah (Isaiah said), will have results for many different types of people. Those in valleys – the depressed. Those on mountains and hills – the apparently successful. The crooked. The rocky – those who obstruct. John the Baptist said the same. Can all of these needy people have a “mind-change immersion” into a totally new life? Can all these know the “forgiveness of sins” from the LORD God above? Isaiah, John the Baptist, Luke the biographer all answer, “Yes”.
Therefore, he was stating to the crowds coming out to be immersed by him, “Offspring of snakes, who made it known to you to flee from the wrath to come?”	.
A powerful question for all who heard the “message of God” from John. This question, asked of all of them, needed (and needs) a reply. Who had made it known to the crowds, with their snake-like mentality and deeds, “to flee from the wrath to come”? Who? Who is warning people even today?

Sinner Syvret

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